UK Housing Market Enjoying New Year Bounce

The UK housing market is enjoying a new year bounce, with the average price of a home coming up for sale increasing by the largest monthly amount in a decade, data shows.

According to the property website Rightmove, almost £10,000 was added to the average asking price of a British home in the space of five weeks

Rightmove said much of the increase was down to the housing market regaining its optimism after speculation about possible property tax changes in the November budget led to a slump in activity, as many owners and house hunters put their plans on hold. The Bank of England’s interest rate cut a few days before Christmas also gave the market a boost.

Rightmove’s data showed that the average new seller asking price rose by 2.8%, or £9,893, month on month, taking the typical figure to £368,031.

It said this was the largest increase in the month of January in 25 years, and the biggest rise in any month since June 2015.

The data, which is based on tens of thousands of properties put on sale by estate agents between 7 December and 10 January, paints a much more upbeat picture of the market than the most recent figures issued by mortgage lenders Halifax and Nationwide. Both said UK house prices fell in December, by 0.6% and 0.4% respectively.

Jeremy Leaf, a north London estate agent and former Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) residential chair, said: “Although the Rightmove survey looks at asking rather than selling prices of newly listed homes, activity is definitely on the up, buoyed by falling mortgage rates and inflation.”

He said buyers and sellers “breathed a collective sigh of relief” when property tax changes in the budget turned out to be “not as punitive as many expected”